That's not my experience as a Catholic. I am deeply moved in my soul at every mass. I find it to be extremely enriching, edifying, and profoundly beautiful. I sit in the very front, and after I partake, I kneel in prayer and I keep hearing the priest say over and over, "the body of Christ", as each person receives the Eucharist. I hear Christ given to each person; I hear Christ giving Himself to each person; I hear the body of Christ all around me, every beautiful person of all races and ages, all joined together by that act on Calvary and in that act on Calvary, all united in our love for Christ and sharing in His act of self-giving. I have never experienced anything more spiritually edifying and upbuilding in my entire life. In the Eucharist, I experience the love of Christ, that love than which no love is greater, the love shown in His giving up of His very body and blood for my salvation. In the Eucharist I am made a fellow participant in the sufferings of Christ; as I receive His body and blood I am so brought into union with Him that I feel as though I am also encountering His sufferings, the sufferings for which and by which my sins are removed. In the Eucharist I am raised up with Christ to where He is; I am assured of the resurrection of my body and life everlasting joined mysteriously but truly to He who is Life Itself. In confession I am confronted with the gentleness and patience of Christ whose mercy is without limit. In Catholicism, particularly the mass and the sacraments, I encounter the living Christ, and am deeply and truly blessed and raised up in my faith and my love for God. The Catholicism you describe is not the Catholicism I have experienced.
-A8
I am printing this post out and keeping it to remember and to give to my family and friends.
This is exactly what being a Catholic means to me.
Thank you. It was worth reading through this long thread to get to this post.
This is not unique to your organization...For us Christians who received the Holy Spirit upon calling on Christ to save us, we have these same things, always...Not just at communion...But we have communion to reflect upon that Last Supper and the crucifiction...
But we don't get raised up everytime we eat the bread and drink the juice...We ARE raised up to sit with Jesus Christ, now and forever...We don't keep going up and down before and after communion...
But I always wondered, how long does a Eucharist last???How long can you go between Eucharists before you need to get 'refueled'???
Every Catholic I talked to (you are the exception) says you guys can not possibly have assurance of being raised up with Christ...
Those of us on the other side know we have that assurance and if you do, you maybe ought to pass that knowledge along to some of the other Catholics...
THAT was beautiful. (and experienced in many many many non-RC churches.) I wish everyone could experience the Body and the Blood like that, A8. Unfortunately, to many, it is just something they do every sunday at church. Thanks for that insight into your love of the Eucharist.
Despite our differences, it goes back to Christ and only Christ, doesn't it?
Thank you for sharing your profound experience. It is reminiscent of what Dr. Scott Hahn, another convert, experienced on his first visit to a Catholic Mass.
Scott Hahn’s The Lamb's Supper - The Mass as Heaven on Earth.
Foreword by Fr. Benedict Groeschel.
Part One - The Gift of the Mass
Hahn begins by describing the first mass he ever attended.
"There I stood, a man incognito, a Protestant minister in plainclothes, slipping into the back of a Catholic chapel in Milwaukee to witness my first Mass. Curiosity had driven me there, and I still didn't feel sure that it was healthy curiosity. Studying the writings of the earliest Christians, I'd found countless references to "the liturgy," "the Eucharist," "the sacrifice." For those first Christians, the Bible - the book I loved above all - was incomprehensible apart from the event that today's Catholics called "the Mass."
"I wanted to understand the early Christians; yet I'd had no experience of liturgy. So I persuaded myself to go and see, as a sort of academic exercise, but vowing all along that I would neither kneel nor take part in idolatry."
I took my seat in the shadows, in a pew at the very back of that basement chapel. Before me were a goodly number of worshipers, men and women of all ages. Their genuflections impressed me, as did their apparent concentration in prayer. Then a bell rang, and they all stood as the priest emerged from a door beside the altar.
Unsure of myself, I remained seated. For years, as an evangelical Calvinist, I'd been trained to believe that the Mass was the ultimate sacrilege a human could commit. The Mass, I had been taught, was a ritual that purported to "resacrifice Jesus Christ." So I would remain an observer. I would stay seated, with my Bible open beside me.
As the Mass moved on, however, something hit me. My Bible wasn't just beside me. It was before me - in the words of the Mass! One line was from Isaiah, another from Psalms, another from Paul. The experience was overwhelming. I wanted to stop everything and shout, "Hey, can I explain what's happening from Scripture? This is great!" Still, I maintained my observer status. I remained on the sidelines until I heard the priest pronounce the words of consecration: "This is My body . . . This is the cup of My blood."
Then I felt all my doubt drain away. As I saw the priest raise that white host, I felt a prayer surge from my heart in a whisper: "My Lord and my God. That's really you!"
I was what you might call a basket case from that point. I couldn't imagine a greater excitement than what those words had worked upon me. Yet the experience was intensified just a moment later, when I heard the congregation recite: "Lamb of God . . . Lamb of God . . . Lamb of God," and the priest respond, "This is the Lamb of God . . ." as he raised the host. In less than a minute, the phrase "Lamb of God" had rung out four times. From long years of studying the Bible, I immediately knew where I was. I was in the Book of Revelation, where Jesus is called the Lamb no less than twenty-eight times in twenty-two chapters. I was at the marriage feast that John describes at the end of that very last book of the Bible. I was before the throne of heaven, where Jesus is hailed forever as the Lamb. I wasn't ready for this, though - I was at Mass!
So simple yet so revolutionary.
**I am deeply moved in my soul at every mass.**
I am too. Actually shocked to see blind leaders of the blind crucify Him afresh.
Everybody has emotions. Not everybody has been filled with Holy Ghost. It is joy unspeakable and full of glory. It is a supernatural experience.
On Pentecost, people were thought to be drunk, so powerful was the effect. And it wasn't because there was so many different languages being spoken at the same time. I've walked through an airport and heard several languages spoken in a congested area.
Simon the sorcerer offered the apostles money for the power to give souls the Holy Ghost. What did he see and hear, people saying "I accept the Lord as my personal savior"? I think it was much, much more than that.
There are three accounts in the book of Acts where people spoke in tongues when receiving the Holy Ghost. The most unruly member, the tongue, yielding to God's Spirit.
I fought it for years, meanwhile clinging to traditions that were passed down by blind leaders of the blind.
Nyer posts stories of people 'crossing the Tiber', as if that makes a case for Roman Catholicism. It just proves to me that their walk with God became reliant on seeing and partaking in a religious ceremony.
Jesus commanded his apostles to preach repentance and remission of sins beginning at Jerusalem. Peter followed that command, ordering convicted hearts to "repent and be baptized EVERYONE of you in the NAME of Jesus Christ, for the REMISSION of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost."
Jesus said: He that believeth on me as the scriptures hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)
AFTER partaking in the last supper Jesus told his disciples that he would not leave them comfortless, saying, "I will come to you", and "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you".
What day? The day they are filled with the Holy Ghost, aka 'Christ in you, the hope of glory'.
For many years I settled for conviction, and emotion, coupled with ceremonies that had been approved by religious leaders. The baptism of the Holy Ghost is not emotions. It is God making his presence known.